It’s Aug. 25, and day one of construction of Erika Nelson’s latest art installation has begun. Inside a warehouse in Houston’s East End near Interstate 45, the contemporary artist guides volunteers—most of whom have little to no formal art training—with encouraging directions as they align canvas tarps, rip and stick duct tape in cross formations, and spray hissing blue paint to create outlines of what will eventually be the state of Texas.
You would never feel a hint of pressure or stress watching the novice group work together as Nelson tells them where to tape and overlay tarps, but, from start to finish, they only have three weeks to construct a traversable topographic map of Texas. Nelson is creating a 60-by-60-foot diorama, dubbed the Texas-Sized Roadtrip Diorama Of Wonder, for the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, a foundation that’s celebrated and preserved “outsider art”—works that defy traditional art expectations—since its founding in 1982.
The Orange Show Center For Visionary Arts
2334 Gulf Terminal Drive, Houston. 713-926-6368; orangeshow.org
The installation merges iconic highways like I-45, quirky roadside attractions like Prada Marfa, and vast, varying landscapes from Big Bend to the Gulf Coast into one immersive space at the center’s current headquarters—a decommissioned truck depot full of artistic renderings and repurposed materials. The diorama is on view to the public through Nov. 9 before it will be dismantled.
Over the years, the Orange Show has hosted artists to complete community-built projects, and each year the scale grows more ambitious and volunteer-focused. The first year, musician and artist Lonnie Holly built a contemporary environment from a field of large free-standing sculptures. Last year, California sculptor David Best built a 35-foot-tall nondenominational temple adorned with written inscriptions, beloved trinkets and even ashes commemorating the community’s lost loved ones. Nelson’s project continues this tradition of innovation and ingenuity.
Born in San Angelo, the traveling artist has spent the better part of the past 25 years on the road, visiting most states an estimated three or four times. Nelson often visits large-scale attractions and turns her roadside findings into mini artistic creations in her World’s Largest Collection Of The World’s Smallest Versions Of The World’s Largest Things found in Lucas, Kansas, near the geographic center of the United States and also Nelson’s home when she’s not on the road.
Her far-and-wide American travels have taken her to such sights as the World’s Largest Egg in Winlock, Washington; the World’s Largest Frying Pan in Long Beach, Washington; the World’s Largest Penny in Woodruff, Wisconsin; and the historic Lucy The Elephant in Margate, New Jersey. Given her affinity for the quirky and grand, Texas was the perfect landscape for her artistic vision. To construct the installation, Orange Show employees collected repurposed and found materials like foam and turf, as well as things like tires sourced from a local shop, sawhorses from a recently closed cabinet maker called Brochsteins, and even a broken massage table.
As you move through the makeshift map, you feel as though you’re on a true Texas road trip—one that everyone from the world-traveled to the diehard homebody can equally appreciate. “This piece is for everyone, from somebody who can’t drive yet [to] someone who can’t escape the city whenever they want to, or maybe even someone who used to be able to travel a lot but doesn’t anymore,” she says. “I want it to be large and immersive that you get a little lost in it, but then find your way back when you see something familiar like, ‘Oh, there’s Big Tex, I must be in Dallas!’”
That ability to get lost in the wonder of Texas is one of the reasons the Orange Show was immediately on board after hearing Nelson’s idea for her in-residence stay, says Pete Gershon, the Orange Show’s curator of programs. “There’s a mystique about the state and the fact that we’re so different,” he says. “It’s a massive land to traverse, and an incredible canvas that we can get into with all these different landscapes that we can mimic, from the beach to the Hill Country, the Panhandle, and, of course, the incredible history of these roadside attractions.”
At one turn of the diorama, you’ll see coastal areas at just a half a foot off the ground, while at another turn you can expect the mountainous western region to be about five feet up. Though you can’t walk directly through the Texas terrain like Godzilla stomping through cities and towns, you can stroll down main highways, taking in both familiar and foreign sights. And oh the sights you’ll see; the small-scale roadside attractions are what imbue the work with immense charm, character, and creativity.
The Orange Show hosted weekend workshops during the map’s construction to allow both artists and volunteers to create their own models, attractions, and monuments from repurposed materials, and the sky was truly the limit, even if that meant a favorite Buc-ee’s stop or an imagined roadside attraction that didn’t technically exist. “Anyone who can tell a story as to what they’re making and if they’re committed to it, I think that’s fair game,” Nelson says.
Along with the expected classics, like the State Fair Of Texas’ Big Tex, there are hidden gems and unexpected surprises. There’s the World’s Tallest Strawberry (a water tower) found in Poteet; the Tex Ritter Statue in Carthage; the World’s Largest Spur in Lampasas; the Big Crab that sits atop Gaido’s restaurant in Galveston; and the World’s Largest Cowboy Boots in San Antonio.
It would be all easy to get caught up in the spectacle of such a profound installation, much like the Orange Show’s other famous attractions including the quirky Beer Can House and long-standing Art Car Parade, but Gershon reminds viewers that art is not just to stand clear of and marvel at, but something to participate in and share with the community.
“Art doesn’t have to be pretentious,” he says. ”Our goal isn’t to glorify the resulting object. It’s the process and how people do creative things together. So don’t just come out here to look at something cool. Let’s all get together, build it, and have fun doing it.”
